Saturday, October 24, 2009

Another thought on loudness torture

We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice. To now learn that some of our friends' music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge is horrific. It's anti-American, period.
REM
The fact that music I helped create was used as a tactic against humanity sickens me. We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.
Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine
Maybe I would feel differently about this if there were any chance that Cinder Bridge's music was on the torture playlist. Maybe. But I kind of wonder why these musicians are focusing on the music torture. As long as they're all getting together to protest, why not protest all torture? It's not like they're OK with waterboarding because waterboarding didn't involve their creative input.

3 comments:

wyvernfree said...

It's just a way of connecting to the issue in a media-powerful way. No one would care about Tom Morella's opinion about waterboarding-- it's no more important or interesting than, say, mine. His opinion about the inhuman use of RATM songs, on the other hand, carries some weight that mine does not, and is therefore interesting to the media and the general popoulation.

They're leveraging their fame in a way that's most likely to get them airtime.

cinderkeys said...

I hadn't thought of that. The quotes from these artists sounded so earnest (which I'm sure they were) that it didn't occur to me that they could also be calculated.

In any case, it's worked. A lot of newspapers/news sites have picked up the story.

wyvernfree said...

Oh, I think they are earnest. I mean, Morello says "We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now," not just "Stop using my music you shitheads." I'm sure he sincerely cares about human rights, and I'm sure his own music being connected with something he strongly disapproves of is personally upsetting to him.

But that doesn't change the fact that "Stop using my music you shitheads" is the perfect lead-in to "We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now," if you happen to be Tom Morello. It's just good sense for him to present it that way IMHO. It doesn't mean he wouldn't care about it if they didn't use his songs, but this way he has more cachet to complain about it.